I drifted through space.
I'm alive, right? What... happened?
Then I remembered the ring and the pain and the overwhelming knowledge. I could still retain it even in this disembodied state.
I laughed. I seem to be passing out an awful lot recently. Then, within the darkness, two red glinting eyes stared at me. My own eyes widened, and panic began to rise.
"Wh-What the hell are you?!" I shouted, trying to sound confident, but my shaking and terrified voice didn't defend my case very well.
The eyes stared, unblinking, back at me, and a voice resounded in my head to my confusion.
So you're the human who has awakened the ring, huh? You look far too weak to handle this power...
I looked at the red eyes in dismay. "Too weak? What's that supposed to mean? Is it because I don't have an artefact?!"
A small and sinister laugh echoed through my head, and the voice responded in a dark tone.
You're just a human. The power of this artefact is too much for your body. You are weak and fragile... such is the limits of a human.
I snorted and responded, "You haven't seen humans then have you? There are humans on the surface who can raze cities and towns to rubble in moments, and you - " my words cut off as in my head I saw visions of a snake, with silver scales and red glinting eyes that looked familiar to me. The snake ventured along the snowy plains of Ycecliff and travelled with a human who was wearing the same ring that was now on my finger.
The pieces began to come together, and the visions faded. My jaw, now a little slack, clenched, and I looked back at the red eyes. "That was you, right? You're a part of this ring?"
The eyes only stared until the icy voice finally spoke again.
I am. I am Orebrul... the last of the Yurvepian clan of the Serpentine race. As I'm sure you're now aware, my clan went extinct from being hunted and... through cannibalism.
I swallowed past the lump in my throat, and I nodded. My mouth opened to ask a question, but it quickly shut as fast as it had opened.
Hmph... what were you going to ask? Did I kill my own kind? Yes, I did. For survival, of course. My master helped protect me most of the time, however.
I nodded again. "Your master is the owner of this ring then?"
Correct. That is {The Ring of the Forgotten Sovereign}. It is what you humans call an 'artefact'.
At this revelation, the eyes manifested into something more. The darkness that had consumed everything around me parted, and the silvery scaled snake from the visions appeared before me. It had a toned torso that moulded into its tail where legs should be, with muscular arms and red eyes that shone the colour of blood. Two fangs that looked like ivory jutted from the roof of its mouth and its tail, which stretched out for at least two or more metres, flicked around sharply, the tip of it encased again in some slick, ivory-like material. Its tongue darted out a few times as it spoke, and I could now clearly see when it was talking, instead of it being a disembodied voice.
"You are Lough Freed... It is nice to finally see you in the flesh, " hissed Orebrul. He glared at me with his sharp red eyes as he continued, "I have been watching you for a while now. Every day you enter this Dungeon, kill a few beasts with, I must admit, impressive skill, then you pretend to be injured and walk out before going past the third floor. Why?"
I was speechless. He had been watching me? But if he'd been down here, how could he? I shook the question from my thought process and nodded. "Because I don't want to reveal any skills to anyone. I have my own reasons. Do I dare ask if you know them too?"
Orebrul gave me a toothy grin, "Quick-witted, I see, how interesting of a master you will be. However, no, I do not know your reasons for hiding this extraordinary skill you have. While you have no magic prowess, your physical and combat prowess is almost like a veteran's." Orebrul peered at me as if trying to pry the answers from me, but I shielded myself.
"You'll find out in due time if I learn to trust you," I replied matter-of-factly.
Orebrul laughed, "Very well, Lough Freed." With that, the darkness around us shrank away, and the cave with the pedastal reappeared before my now widened eyes. Orebrul began to shrink and eventually became a small bubble of silver mercury-like liquid that flowed strangely with an otherworldly look. Two tiny red dots opened, and they looked at me.
When I'm like this, I can enter the ring and talk to you through a mental link, so to speak.
I nodded along with Orebrul's explanation. "OK, got it," I answered, sceptical of Orebrul's true intentions, as he melded into the ring.
I glanced at the ring. "What was all that knowledge? I saw weird things, stuff about aspects and pathways, magic and skills... what was all that?"
Orebrul gave me a resigned sigh.
Listen here, Lough, because I'll only say this once. Got that?
I nodded, "Go on."
This ring is a powerful artefact. It grants you a specific ability called
{Archive of the Forgotten Sovereign} that lets you enter pathways into different aspects of magic and skills. There are eight aspects, each with their own respective pathways and their own respective branches of skills and magic. This is the only artefact of its kind and in terms of your silly ranks... I'd put this somewhere around SS-class.
I laughed. When Orebrul didn't laugh back, I asked, "You're kidding, right? This can't be real... you must be joking?!"
This time, though, Orebrul did laugh.
You're insufferable, you know. Why can't you believe what I say? Of course I'm not joking, you dumbass!
"I'm not that insufferable, am I?"
I asked this as I glanced at the ring. Its silvery metal shined brightly even in the dim light. All of a sudden, it began to glow a soft blue, and the world around me expanded and zoomed out as everything began to distance itself from me. The further away something was from me, the more it zoomed out away from the point I was stood at.
Then symbols appeared before me and beyond them were white lines that took on different shapes and had little stars blinking at each vertex of the shapes. Some symbols were coloured red, some blue, and a couple green. However, there was one purple one that I didn't recognise, despite having the surge of knowledge from earlier.
My brow furrowed as I tried to link the knowledge I'd received to the shapes. "Orebrul? Each of these are the paths you were talking about, right?"
Orebrul's metallic bubble of a body split off the ring and floated next to my head. "Yes, that is correct."
"So there's eight." I gave each one a glance. "Stealth... Enchantment... Alchemy? What the hell is all this?"
Orebrul sighed. "As suggested by the term Alchemy, it lets you create, mix, and break down things like spells, skills, and matter. You can break down a skill and copy it, then build it back up to improve it and furthermore combine it with another skill to make something unheard of"
My eyes shook with terror. "Orebrul, do you know what you're saying?! That's impossible! Do you really mean to tell me that there was a man in the past who was able to use any and all skills ever discovered?!"
The word came so naturally, so calmly, that for the few moments after, I was dumbstruck and actually believed it.
"Yes." He replied.
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